01 March 2017

Ockham's Razor, Scepticism and Biblicism Part 2

Saving Faith and Scepticism

If Scripture is to be reckoned authoritative, we must be
somewhat sceptical with regard to our own epistemological capabilities and
rather than seek a coherent system, we subordinate our categories and
method and seek a form of correspondence rather than coherence. The result is a
three dimensional, dynamic, or Dialectic logic that is not verifiable by
Aristotelian categorised proofs. Indeed to the Aristotelian, it is irrational
and incoherent foolishness.

At this point Fideism is charged and it
carries a negative connotation, an epithet to describe irrationalism. The
alternative seems to be a rationalistic faith that deems man's problem as
almost merely intellectual. The Biblicist resting on revelation will argue
flesh and blood did not reveal the truth to us and that man's wisdom cannot
bring anyone to the faith. At best we can form a basic coherence that recognizes the existence of God, something of
His nature and that we're under judgment but these things are not empirically
verifiable nor can we formulate dogmatic certainties. This simplified if
shadowy coherence, while both frightening and humbling is the intellectual
basis of our faith, but once we cross the line, the quest for coherence must be
abandoned.

It is the intellectual basis in the
sense that the produced limited coherence is in the end defeating and
condemnatory. We are left with an unpleasant cloud of inconclusiveness. Nature
points to a God we cannot seem to properly know. Man in all his philosophical
and idolatrous capacity has sought to form coherent expressions, answers as it
were to this daunting and inescapable dilemma. Most expressions of the
Christian faith echo this project but with the Bible or some other form of
authority in hand.

Faith as described in Scripture is a revealed mystery not based on inferred
logic but reliance and trust placed in an Oracular Person, one who breaks into
history and provides a Way of reconciliation and salvation. Based on His Word
and faith in His Person, we accept the authority of the Apostles and of
Scripture.

Faith is therefore a humble and
trusting cry for help, not a consequence of a right-reasoned coherence, but
instead an admission of its failure.
Broken and despondent we come to Christ as the Light, the one who will leads us
out of the impenetrable fog and the inescapable labyrinth of our fallen
existence as well as our limited, flawed and even diseased ability to
understand it.

Faith is the result of the failure of coherence and the
collapse of not only reason but the whole of epistemology.

Ockham's Razor facilitates this process
in destroying the philosophical systems of the world but again we must cast it
aside once we cross the line. Ockham himself seemed to understand this. All
revelation can be spoken of as metaphysical and utilising subordinated logic we
develop a theology of correspondence. Systematizing, developing and/or creating
a metaphysic are ultimately speculative, resting on man's logic. The
philosophical approach to theology, whether of the Thomistic or Anselmian
variety is to re-introduce a confidence in man's intellectual ability and
capacity. It is to re-infuse faith with the various criteria and categories of
human reason. This not only is a challenge to the doctrine of the Fall but ends
up assailing the authority of Scripture itself.

Without reason the apologists of these
methods will insist we cannot formulate doctrine. We cannot speak of 'a faith'
let alone elaborate upon it. We cannot communicate it or teach it to others
without the categories of logic and rationality. The dismantling of
epistemology results only in scepticism and one that is necessarily brought
with us to the Bible and to faith itself.

That would be true if it were not for
Jesus Christ.

The line dividing the Temporal Common
Grace realm of Natural Revelation, and the Eternal Redemptive Grace realm of
Special Revelation is the Theanthropic person of Jesus the Christ. He is quite
literally in His Body, the ground of our Christian Epistemology and the only
thing that can rescue us from scepticism.

Philosophically we ought to view
Nominalism as a logical end, the unintended telos of Aristotelian thought.
Though the Greek master himself was perhaps better labeled a Conceptualist, the
Universals in his thought were defined and dependent upon the Particulars. To
put it another way, the Universals are empirically defined, or to put it in the
categories I often utilize, the Invisible is dependent and defined by the
Visible.

Our limited logic can only prove (via
coherence) that the Visible…IS, while the Invisible is a concept describing a
set or category of the Visible Subject/Universal or Form if you will. Either
way it's in the mind, a mind that cannot escape the limitations and experiences
of temporality. The Visible, the empirically verifiable becomes the governing
principle of the system. The Universals (or in reality the categories of Metaphysics)
are subjugated to these empirically developed and dependent axioms. The
Universals serve the purpose of coherence, to unify and to create new
theoretical axioms from which further deductions can be made and which are subsequently
integrated into the holistic system.

This aspect of Aristotelianism I would conclude (others would disagree)….is
really just a more profound and complex (if inconsistent) Nominalism. While it
may seem counter-intuitive to suggest this, the scholastic approach creates a
system resting on proofs, rationally coherent but ultimately empirically
verified proofs. It believes Universals (though abstract) are verifiable
and can contribute to the system. It's an abstract or derived Empiricism that
allows for confident speculation even into the extra-empirical realm of
metaphysics. Nominalism returns back to the basic premise of Empiricism, ups
the ante, takes this form of intellectualism to the next level, with higher
demands and more stringent parameters. It challenges all assumptions and
questions the validity of these categories. Are they in keeping with the basic
assumptions and demands for evidentiary proof? If not, they must be parsed,
dissected, analyzed and if found wanting, dispensed with.

Aristotelian demands for validity and
coherence would not stand for otherwise. But as the system grows in complexity,
the dilemmas and antinomies multiply. Even the conceptual elements in the end
cannot stand the tests of consistency and the law of non-contradiction. The
demands of logical validity insist on rejecting unverifiable abstractions. The
system is reduced at best to a conceptual device and begins having to
compete with alternatives, ones that present a more holistic explanation built
upon dynamic and ever widening sets of criteria. Rationalism (here meaning
abstract reasoning and logical deduction) will over time, as it is worked
out and subsequently developed, slowly destroy the structure...and then begins
to work on the foundation. Ockham's method (which is at the heart of what human
logic is) questions coherences that are the creation of the mind and not
verifiable. It begins a process of dismantling, deconstruction and ultimately
disintegration.

It sows the seed of its own destruction.
That which was utilised to build the system, because it is a finite tool
attempting to deal with either the fallen world, the infinite or both is found incapable.
It begins to implode and once the foundations are destroyed you end up with
Scepticism.

Nominalism is in effect the method of Aristotelianism
turned in on itself. It is a destroyer of all man-made systems, a mortal danger
to the philosopher and the scholastic who wishes to derive a coherent system
for not only understanding Scripture but developing a social order and a wider
range of metaphysics. Ockham's gift as it were is that he has peeled back the
veneer of human logic and exposed its core. And what is it? What has he found?
Something cursed, human vanity, even a sham. The solid rock we think we're
standing on turns out to be not only wet sand but quicksand.

To the Biblicist, the true Scripturalist it is a gift and a
weapon to be wielded, but it must be cast aside when we approach Biblical
doctrine. Wielding the scholastic method when we approach Scripture will unveil
the Razor once more and the self-destructive process begins again. The Razor
can be used to compare matter with matter, but in a universe that rests in
spiritual (metaphysical) reality, the Razor in the end can only destroy.